


Endings

by RowboatCop



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Canon Disabled Character, F/M, Junk Food - Freeform, Making Out, Sparring, breakup rituals, daisy's powers, mentions Coulson/Rosalind, mentions Daisy/Lincoln, toenail painting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-14
Updated: 2015-11-14
Packaged: 2018-05-01 13:12:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,849
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5207144
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RowboatCop/pseuds/RowboatCop
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Coulson and Daisy helping each other through their respective breakups. Complete unrepentant ridiculous bonding fluff, post 3x07.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Endings

**Author's Note:**

  * For [zauberer_sirin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/zauberer_sirin/gifts).



When he gets back to the Playground he tries to play it like he’s not doing the walk of shame, but the look Hunter shoots him says he’s not succeeding.

Not that he feels _shame_ per se.

Everything is...complicated...with Rosalind, and yet also really really simple, and maybe he’s just missed that in his life. Things that can be simple.

The thing is, he’s been convinced that he’d probably never have sex again.

The giant scar on his chest and the hand aren’t things he can — aren’t things he _wants to_ — explain to a one night stand. And the thought of letting someone he’s close to see him that vulnerable, see the weakest most broken parts of him, is terrifying.

Rosalind is a perfect middle ground. Close enough to know, distant enough that whatever she thinks of him doesn’t scare him.

It’s not some epic love story; he’s not in love with her and probably never could be. But she’s not a bad person, he’s sure of it.

And whatever other lies there might be between them, _this part_ is simple. Attraction, desire, _touch_.

(He’s missed touch, so much, never thought about how distanced he’s been from his own humanity because of how little he touches other people.)

Simple.

Daisy is waiting for him in his office, though, which is the pinnacle of _not simple_.

And, from her expression, she’s under no illusions about where he’s been. She raises an eyebrow, and he shoots back a tight smile, almost blushing at her scrutiny.

“Are you about to tell me that you’re still keeping your objective distance? _When you’ve been doing this as long as I have…_ ” She does a mocking impression of his voice, too deep.

“No,” he admits. “This was...personal.”

“And you’re sure you’re not compromising our mission here?”

“No, this is separate.”

“ _Sure_.”

“Is there a good reason for this insubordination?”

The words are angry but his tone isn’t, exactly — defensive, maybe.

“Besides my worry that you’re compromising SHIELD?”

“I know what I’m doing,”

“Maybe I think she’s playing you and you’re letting her.”

“When have I ever let someone play me?”

Daisy just raises her eyebrows, and he laughs — a quick, short sound.

“You didn’t play me. I knew something was up from the moment I brought you on board.”

“But you trusted me anyways.”

“Because you deserved it.”

“Because you’re an idiot.”

He should probably be more offended by that, but she says it with something verging on fondness, like she mostly likes it that she thinks he’s an idiot.

“Rosalind is okay, Daisy. She’s coming around; she was very impressed by you.”

“So you want me to be happy about this?”

He doesn’t need her _approval_ to have sex, though, and this isn’t a referendum and he’s not about to offer explanations.

She can probably read the defiance on his face because she backs down, hands raised, putting more distance between them.

“I get it, Coulson. I’m not…” She shakes her head, and he feels bad for thinking she would judge him so harshly for this. “I just wish it was with someone who didn’t want to put me in a box.”

It cuts him to the bone, the thought that Daisy might see this as a betrayal.

It’s not, he knows.

He would _never_ , Rosalind would _never_. Rosalind has got some wrong ideas, but he can see it — the potential for her to do better, the ways she has been doing better. He can see it.

Coulson opens his mouth, searching for a response, but is cut off when Mr. Campbell pokes his head in the door.

“Daisy, are you —” His words seem to get swallowed up by an awkward silence.

Coulson wants to tell him to get lost (he has some issues about the way Lincoln Campbell has handled himself, okay, and this kid is never going to be his favorite), wants to tell him that they’re in the middle of something, but Daisy just nods.

There’s a long look, Daisy’s eyes holding Coulson’s as Lincoln watches them, and he doesn’t know what to do with it.

And then she brushes past him on her way out the door.

“I hope you know what you’re doing,” she shoots back at him, and he’d actually feel better if it were angry before she leaves him standing in the middle of his office.  

He’s never thought that seeking out a human connection could make him feel more alone.

  


* * *

 

 

Of course it turns out he doesn’t know what he’s doing.

Of course it’s much more complicated (and maybe much more simple) than he had hoped it was.

And maybe he still doesn’t know what to feel about it, since it’s not like he _loved_ her, not like he didn’t know she was still hiding things, not like this meant that much to him beyond a long-overdue physical release, beyond some human interaction.

Still, he’d have hoped to find that with someone who wasn’t secretly working with Nazis.

He’s picky that way.

“Hi,” Daisy bursts in on his pity party.

He looks up at her wordlessly from where he’s been drooped over his desk since he locked Rosalind in one of the pods, since he contained her like the threat she is.

It’s with suspicion that he scans over Daisy’s face, looking for any trace of _I told you so_.

He finds none. (He feels a little bad for expecting it. Or maybe it’s just that he feels he deserves it.)

“I brought coffee,” she holds up two mugs, the one with the damn grumpy cat extended towards him.

Coulson hesitates, but then takes his cup, holds it under his nose for a minute as she sits across from him.

And he doesn’t mind the company — especially not _her_ company, _never_ her company — but he doesn’t have anything to say, doesn’t know how to break the silence that settles between them.

So they sip their coffee quietly, and every so often he catches her eyes, wide and deep brown and undemanding over the top of her mug.

“So do you want to talk? Or we could just keep sitting here in silence, that’s okay, too.”

He manages something like a smile.

“I um, thought you might like these, too.”

From inside her jacket, she pulls out a package of mini donuts — the little junky powdered-sugar ones.

His favorite.

His lips quirk upwards against his will as she opens the package, extracts one, and passes it across the desk to him, and then stays still.

“Are you gonna have one?”

“I got them for you,” she shrugs, and Coulson shakes his head.

“Join me.”

“In a donut,” Daisy half-laughs, but pulls out her own and takes a bite as he does, looking across the table from him as she chews.

There’s a long silence, filled with quiet sound of them chewing on donuts.

“It’s not your fault, you know.”

“I _don’t_ know,” he answers.

“You invited her into SHIELD, but you had to do that.”

“I didn’t have to sleep with her.”

“No,” she agrees. “And I’m not saying you shouldn’t feel hurt or bad about it, just that...your personal relationship with her, you’re right. It didn’t change things, it was separate. What happened…”

“It would have happened anyways.”

“Right.”

He wonders how she can be so magnanimous about this when he knows it hurt her that he had a personal relationship with someone who was openly hostile towards her.

“I didn’t love her. I knew she was still hiding things from me, and it’s not…”

“I know,” she nods. “It’s still a betrayal. It’s okay to feel that.”

“Yeah?”

“You’re looking at someone who has made out with the current Head of Hydra, Coulson. Trust me; I know what I’m talking about.”

He almost laughs at her self-deprecating tone.

“And how did you get through that?”

“Violence,” she answers, and he knows she’s only half kidding, remembers perfectly well how she threw herself into training with May, into perfecting her firearms, into becoming an amazing agent.

“I might give that a try later.”

He eats the second half of his donut instead, getting a grin from across his desk.

“It’s not like I thought she was perfect. But...I thought I could help her.”

“You thought she could be better. More like you.”

“More like you,” he corrects her.

She almost smiles at him.

“It’s not on you to make her better, you know.”

“Yeah,” he answers, noncommittal. “I just think of how it was when we met,” he gestures between the two of them. “You came into my organization and showed me a different way to think about things.”

“And you wanted to do that for her.”

“I thought maybe…”

“Coulson?”

He runs his right hand down his face, then extends it for another donut.

She hands it over, eats another one with him in silence, and it’s comfortable.

“It was nice to feel...wanted,” he finally voices, not something he ever imagined he would express to _her_.

Daisy draws in a shaky breath and lets it out, her eyes wide and knowing as she takes him in.

“I get that.”

“I know you do.”

“You’ve been feeling...less than whole.”

He holds up his robotic hand, and almost laughs.

“Less than human,” he answers.

“I guess I’m no expert on humans, Phil, but...you’re the most human person I know.”

His eyes sting at her kind words, at her acceptance of him and he drops his head into his hand to hide it for a just a moment.

“Daisy,” he sighs her name as he looks back up, though not because he has anything to say.

“You are, though. You believe in people, Phil. You see the goodness in everyone, and that’s not a weakness, it’s a strength.”

“Except for when it makes me weak.”

“You’re not weak. Don’t let this change you.”

He can hear her phone buzz in her pocket before he has a chance to do anything but squeeze his eyes shut tight.

“I, um,” Daisy clears her throat. “I’m taking Lincoln out for coffee. Unless you want me to —”

“No,” he stops her from even making the offer, though he can’t pull his eyes away from the half-empty coffee cup in front of her, from the coffee that she’s been drinking, and it makes the euphemism of it even more painful. “No, have fun.”

  


* * *

 

 

She throws him over her head, slamming his back down on the mats and rolling after him, landing on top with her fist poised over his face.

“Mercy,” Coulson grunts, letting himself go limp beneath her, and Daisy grins and drops her fist, but doesn’t climb off from where she’s straddling his stomach. She feels warm, kind of nice, on top of him, and he really doesn’t mind.

“Already?”

“When you suggested violence, I kind of thought _I’d_ get to do a little of the violence.”

“So you want me to go easy on you?”

Coulson laughs and drops his head backwards.

“I think I deserve it. I’m an old man,” he complains.

“No, you’re the Director of SHIELD. And you’d never want me to go easy on you. You’d just be complaining about it if I did.”

“Probably true.” He shifts underneath her, but does nothing to dislodge her from her position astride his abdomen. “I guess I should count myself lucky you’re only taking me down with your fists, and not…”

Daisy raises her hand up and wiggles her fingers.

“You’ve barely seen me in action,” she points out.

“That’s true.”

“I kind of thought you would have wanted to see more. To know what I could do.”

Coulson nods once.

“I trusted you to have a handle on things.”

“That’s not what I meant. Just that…”

“That I’d be interested,” he completes her thought, and she nods. “I was. I am. I just…”

“You didn’t want me to think you had doubts.”

“I don’t.” He swallows, looks up at her and shakes his head slowly. “I don’t have any doubts about you.”

Her smile fades, eyes distant like maybe she’s gone somewhere else, and then she looks down at him with wet, shining eyes.

“That means a lot, you know? It’s always meant a lot to me that you’ve never acted like I’m...a threat.”

“You’re not,” he tells her, so adamant his voice almost breaks, and he lets his right hand reach up and cup her cheek, a point of tender contact. She leans her head into his hand, so he’s supporting the weight of her head in his palm.

“You told me that I was still the same person underneath when I was most afraid I was a monster.”

“You could never be a monster.”

She looks so _relieved_ at his words, at this huge understatement of what a fantastic person she is, and it’s physically painful to think about how much she’s needed something so small from him, and how much he’s failed to give it to her.

It’s too intense as she looks down at him, too intense in a way that he doesn’t know how to handle right now, so he flips them over, slams Daisy onto her back and moves into a grapple.

“No fair,” she grunts as she begins to fight back.

“Can’t play fair. I’m at a disadvantage. Old man, remember?”

He gets his leg around her waist, a pretty effective pin, and she laughs.

“Yeah, such a disadvantage.”

She’s out of her depth with this kind of fighting, hasn’t had the same kind of training he has, and he almost get the upper hand.

Almost.

He’s managed to get back on top of her when he feels the air under him begin to vibrate, and find himself lifted off of her — levitating above her.

The sensation is incredible, slightly ticklish along his front, weightless, and _flying_. He’s flying, and he laughs, absolute unrestrained joy as their eyes lock — Daisy about two feet below him, just below where he could reach if he tried.

“Hold really still,” she tells him, and he nods once before she lifts him higher, biting her lip in concentration.

He does, he holds completely still, keeping his arms out to brace in case of fall instead of pulling a Superman like he really wants to, until she begins to lower him back down, letting him fall the last few inches so he drops with his knees on either side of her hips, his hands on either side of her head.

“That was incredible,” he breathes, and it’s embarrassing how excited he is, almost vibrating with it. “You’re incredible.”

And they’re no closer than they were while grappling moments ago, but now it’s not about that, now he’s _excited_ , and he knows he should put some space between them. He knows that, at the very least, he shouldn’t stay like this — on top of her.

She smiles up at him, though, and he finds that he can’t move.

“Uh, Daisy?” Mack’s voice interrupts them, and Coulson looks up too slowly, finds it hard to drag his eyes away from hers. “Lincoln’s looking for you.”

He does, though, looks up at Mack from his position balanced above Daisy and then sits up, pulls back to let her up.

“I um,” she looks back at him as she stands up and licks her lips, looking _almost_ nervous. “I could show you more tomorrow, if you want.”

“I’d like that.”

She nods, and follows Mack out of the gym, leaving him sitting on the mats.

  


* * *

 

 

He finds her in the lounge space, sitting on the floor in front of the couch with some sort of cooking show turned on, painting her toenails.

“Hi,” he greets her.

She doesn’t startle — he’s mostly caught on to the idea that she can sense the vibrations of people near her, even though she’s never exactly explained it — so he guesses she knew she was being watched.

“Hi,” she answers, though she doesn’t turn to face him, instead finishes with her last nail and then screws the cap back on a bottle of dark purple polish.

“I thought you’d have plans on a Friday night.” _Plans with Lincoln_ is unsaid, but understood, he thinks.

Not that they get Friday nights or weekends. But with three potential heads of Hydra locked up, it’s been a little slow — in a good way.

“I cancelled them,” she answers, and he watches as she bends her leg, getting her toes close enough to her face that she can blow on them.

“Any reason?”

Daisy drops her leg back to the floor and smiles up at him.

“How about you get us drinks, and I’ll tell you?”

It makes him smile a little.

“Any request?”

“Bourbon,” she answers, and he nods, goes to the bar to fetch them drinks while she climbs up onto the couch and mutes the television.

When he hands her the glass, she smiles and takes a long, slow sniff before bring it to her lips.

“We were talking about the potential of a cure, and Lincoln said he would take it.”

Coulson nods, not terribly surprised by that.

“And I know,” she rolls her eyes as though he’d spoken his thoughts out loud. “I know that’s not surprising, and I know it would be his decision. I’m fine with that. But the way he talked about other Inhumans…”

“Wouldn’t he want to give them the choice?”

“No,” she answers. “No, he wants the whole idea of Inhumans to die.”

Coulson frowns.

“And just — how could someone _say_ that? We were made to be weapons, but we can be more than that.”

She looks at him, as though she’s desperate for confirmation that this is, in fact, the case.

“Of course you can.”

She takes a slow, deep breath.

“I thought being close to him would make me feel closer to myself, to who I really am. I thought it would help me understand my story.”

“Your story?”

She nods.

“I spent pretty much my whole life trying to find out who I was. And what I found...it’s not like it’s all good. But…”

“But there are good parts.”

“There _are_ ,” her voice cracks, and it _hurts_ , it hurts to see her so distraught. “There are good parts.” Her eyes go distant, like she’s reciting a mantra, something she’s told herself hundreds of times. “My parents loved me. And SHIELD saved me. And I can move mountains.”

“And make people fly.”

Tears leak out of the corners of her eyes when she laughs, and she slams back the last of her bourbon and drops the cup on the coffee table before she wipes her face with the back of her sleeve.

“And no one gets to take that from me,” she declares. “He doesn’t get to take that from me just because he’s had a hard life.”

“No, he doesn’t,” Coulson agrees because he really doesn’t know what else to say.

She looks at him for a long time, some thought process too complex happening behind her eyes for him to follow, and then she launches herself at him, arms around his neck and nose pressed to the collar of his shirt. It takes him longer to wrap his arms around her, but he does, he slowly pulls her against his chest and holds her there like she’s a life preserver.

“I’m sorry,” he hears her whisper against his neck.

“Why are you sorry?”

She just shakes her head, doesn’t respond.

He’s not sure how much time passes while he holds her, while she holds him, but it’s startling to realize how much he’s needed this. How much this feeling he’s been left with lately — that he’s not quite human — is about _her_ , is about the way that he’s been keeping emotional distance from her, the way he’s been trying not to burden her with his own pain, the way it means he hasn’t gotten to comfort her, either.

Daisy is the one who finally pulls back, who wipes her eyes on her sleeves again and moves away slowly.

“I think I’d like more bourbon.”

Coulson nods. His glass, sitting on the table, is still mostly full, but he stands up and pours more in hers.

“Phil,” her voice is quiet, tentative, when she speaks again. “What did you see in Rosalind?”

He's a little surprised by the question, but he mostly tries not to show it.

 

“Besides someone I needed to get close to —”

“Because of me,” she interjects, a frown pulling at her lips.

“It’s not your fault she threatened you. And I would have needed to get close to her regardless, you know that.”

She nods once.

“Besides that?

“Someone who wanted me.”

“That can’t be that rare, Coulson. You’re, like, really hot.”

He raises an eyebrow at her, waits for her to blush or back off the statement, but she doesn’t. It makes him flush, he can feel his ears get hot, but he tries not to overthink it.

“It has been very rare lately.”

“And that’s it? Just…”

“Companionship? I know you appreciate how lonely this life can be.”

“Yeah,” she agrees. “I do. But is that all you can hope for? Relationships divorced from feelings? All...compartmentalized?”

“Maybe,” he shrugs. And it doesn’t bother him, not really — not for him. But he can’t look at her and not feel sad that she might never find anything more.

“I guess it could be worse. Falling in love has never worked out that well for me.”

“For me either,” he agrees, and she laughs a little, a sad laugh but one of solidarity.

“At least I have you.”

“Yeah,” he agrees, and clinks his glass against hers.

  


* * *

 

 

“No.”

“Please?”

“Daisy…”

“Oh, come on, Coulson. It can’t bother you that much.”

“It doesn’t,” he agrees.

“Then why not?”

“My feet are really ticklish,” he admits sheepishly.

The admission makes Daisy grin, like she’s just learned something _amazing_ , and her smile brings out his own.

“I’ll be careful,” she promises. “You trust me, don’t you?”

He rolls his eyes, but finally nods and slips off his shoes and socks.

He’s not sure how it happened that they’re doing this again — sitting on the couch drinking whiskey. But it’s not sad tonight, more about the companionship.

And apparently nail painting is fun.

Daisy drops down to the floor and takes his right foot in her lap, keeps her fingertips carefully firm against the bottom of his foot as she positions him.

“See, not bad, right?”

“No, not bad.”

She turns her attention to her nail polish collection. He sort of expects she’ll either pick something dark and obviously masculine or else a baby pink intended to embarrass him, but instead she pulls out a bottle of bright yellow.

He’s amused by the choice, but says nothing, just watches as she positions him carefully and begins to pull careful strokes of the brush down his nails.

“Nail polish was contraband at St. Agnes,” she tells him, voice quiet and directed down at his toes.

“Which made you love it even more?”

“Pretty much,” she agrees. “Some of us would get together and paint our toes — we loved the winter because we could hide it better.”

She finishes the first coat of yellow on his baby toe and drags her fingernail across the side, cleaning up the edge. He shivers at the sensation, but manages to keep still as she rearranges his feet.

“Why nailpolish? That seems pretty harmless?”

“The sisters were afraid of vanity, maybe.” Her tongue pokes out of her mouth for a moment as she get cleans up a smudge on the edge of his big toe.

“Or individuality?”

“I think maybe they just didn’t want us to feel like we were pretty.”

“They must have hated you, then.”

She laughs, but brushes off any sign that she’s seen his statement as a compliment.

“Oh, I never thought I was pretty when I was kid. I thought I needed to be blonde to be pretty.”

“So  when did you realize you were beautiful?”

He’s had enough whiskey and enough time with her lately that he feels brazen, and maybe feels a little bit like he should return the compliment she’d given him recently — that he’s hot, that Daisy thinks he’s hot.

(Yes, okay, he thinks about it too much.)

Daisy smiles at him, maybe slightly flattered and slightly disbelieving, but doesn’t answer for minute, just moves back to his first foot and begins the next coat of polish.

“I’m supposed to pretend I don’t know I’m pretty, right?”

“Is that how it works?”

“Hmm, confident women scare men. And scaring men can be dangerous.”

He frowns at that, at the wisdom in that statement, at the thought that her wisdom comes from things she’s seen and experienced.

“It seems like you’re not too worried about scaring men.”

“Not anymore,” she agrees, and changes his feet again, begins to apply a second coat of polish. “You like that, don’t you? It’s something you liked about Rosalind, too. And I met Camilla Reyes.”

“I suppose I do.”

She stops painting and just looks up at him, up from his yellow toes with big, knowing eyes.

“What else do you like in a woman?”

“I…” He clears his throat, unsure of how to answer. “I think you wouldn’t know it based on those examples, but I like to think I’m attracted to people who are good.”

“Good?”

“People who know right from wrong, who are smart enough to look at a complex situation and always find a way to stick to their principles.”

Daisy laughs and screws the top back on her bottle of nail polish.

“I think I haven’t been so good at picking those kind of people, either,” she tells him, “even though that’s what I want.”

“A good person?”

“A person who will always fight to do the right thing, and always fight to be better.”

She touches his knee, an intimate gesture that seems to imply that _he_ is such a person, but before he can respond, she pulls back and gestures down to his feet.

His toenails are bright yellow, like sunshine, and he can’t help but smile.

“You like it?”

“Yeah,” he admits, an almost-reluctant smile pressing the corners of his mouth upwards. “Yeah, I like it.”

  


* * *

 

 

“I’ve been thinking a lot about something.”

“Oh?”

They’re in the lounge eating donuts after sparring, and he manages to swallow his mouthful and turn his attention to her. Her hair is almost dry after her shower, messy and wavy around her face, and her cotton top is cut low to show off the lines of her collar bones.

And it’s no different than usual, except that he’s noticing. He’s been noticing a lot lately, lately since he gets in the shower every morning and looks down at his sunshine-yellow toes and thinks about Daisy — about Daisy who is so bright and beautiful and _powerful_.

Spending too much time with her is dangerous, liable to bring to the surface a lot of feelings he’s been very good at burying. But at the same time, he’s happier than he’s been in a long time, and he can’t regret the time they’ve been spending together. Not at all.

“Daisy?”

He’s surprised when, instead of asking a question or posing a thought, Daisy wraps her hand around the back of his neck and hauls him into a kiss.

His first response is shock, but he gets over it quickly, curves his arms around her waist and pulls her up against him on the couch. Her lips are soft under his, her tongue gentle against his lower lip, and he loses himself in the kiss.

Daisy pulls back, but keeps her hands planted behind his neck.

“That. I was basically thinking about that.”

“I’ve been thinking about that, too,” he admits. “But I never imagined it would happen.”

“Oh,” she breathes, sounding genuinely surprised. “I thought I was going to have to convince you.”

“And how were you going to do that?”

“I was going to wing it,” she answers with a shrug.

“I’m sure you would have been very persuasive.”

“Mmhmm,” she moans as their lips connect again.

It’s so utterly different from the last time he kissed someone, all joy and exploration, and he thinks he’s never kissed someone that he _loves_ this much.

He pulls back.

“I love you,” he tells her because he can’t have this be about anything other than that, other than the fact that he _loves_ her.

“I love you, too,” she answers back, sounding surprised about it. “I didn’t know.”

“No?”

Her eyes scan over his face slowly, still seeming almost surprised.

“I don’t know how I missed it.”

She grins and kisses him again, more eager as she crawls into his lap.

“Daisy, could we…”

Coulson blushes against his request, at the apparent absurdity of it, of feeling like he could be going too fast with someone he’s known for years — for years.

“We can take it slow.”

  
  


 


End file.
